Bishop David Urquhart celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible

BISHOP David Urquhart tells the Birmingham Mail why the King James Bible remains important.

As the Anglican Bishop of Birmingham it is not surprising that he holds a Bible close to his heart but this is a very special book for him in many ways.

Its cover is battered, its spine has long ago peeled off and its pages are filled with scribbled notes and sidebars. It has clearly been well-read – and not just by Bishop David.

“My first Bible was a King James Bible and you can see it is very well worn, with bits hanging off it,” he says.

“Inside it has got some dates. The first date is 1931 and it has the name DRD Urquhart which is David Urquhart, my uncle,” he added.

“It was given to him when he went to school by his parents.

“The next date is 1960 which is when I was eight years old and went to a boarding school in Scotland and this was the Bible that my grandmother kept from her son’s school days.

“In our family it is special as I always tell the story of my Uncle David who was killed in the Second World War in Malaya in 1942 when he was only 22.

“So my grandmother kept this for some 18 years after he died and, when I was ready for it, she gave it to me.”

Leafing through the pages, Bishop David pulls out a folded sheet with lists of Bible verses.

“It was fairly well used when I got it but then I took it to school and it got bashed about a bit more,” he says.

“The thing about the school which I went to in Pitlochry is that it was run by Presbyterian Christians, who were very keen that in our education we should all know our Bible.

“So in my Bible I still have the Scipture Union daily reading notes that we were expected to do every day.

“We had these by our beds and in the classroom.

“Then on Sundays, before we went to church, we would go back to our classrooms and we would be learning verses from the King James Bible off by heart. This is a little chart that I kept of those verses.

“We started with Psalm 23, on to Psalm 19, Ecclesiasties, Isaiah...and once you remembered a verse and could say it aloud perfectly you ticked it off and then you were given the next ones.

“This goes on week after week, year after year.

“I found this list the other day, I haven’t looked at it for about 40 years.

“I am not sure I could do them all now, as it looks rather a lot! But what is important is that the King James Bible really got me started in my knowledge of what it meant to have faith and to be a Christian.”